Established in April 1946, the Central Office of Information (COI) was the successor to the wartime Ministry of Information. It went on to produce and distribute thousands of films for use across Britain, the Commonwealth and the world. Many famous names passed through the COI, including luminaries of the British documentary movement such as Paul Rotha, Humphrey Jennings and Lindsay Anderson and in later years the likes of Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire) and Peter Greenaway (The Draughtsman's Contract) This 2-disc Blu-ray collection brings together many of the COI's most loved (and in some cases feared) productions including Design for Today, Apaches, Lonely Water and Charley's March of Time. Also included are two previously unreleased COI classics, Smoking and You and Waverley Steps.
Extras/Episodes:
Disc 1:
Children of the City (1944, 31 mins)
Brief City (1952, 20 mins)
Design for Today (1965, 15 mins)
Voyage North (1965, 22 mins)
Lonely Water (1973, 2 mins)
Drive Carefully Darling (1975, 17 mins)
Apaches (1977, 27 mins)
Building Sites Bite (1978, 29 mins)
Insight: Zandra Rhodes (1981, 15 mins)
Disc 2:
Your Children and You (1946, 29 mins)
Waverley Steps (1948, 31 mins)
Charley's March of Time (1948, 9 mins)
What a Life! (1948, 12 mins)
Another Case of Poisoning (1949, 14 mins)
Riding on Air (1959, 16 mins)
Smoking and You (1963, 11 mins)
The Poet's Eye (1964, 20 mins)
Opus (1967, 29 mins)
Never Go With Strangers (1971, 18 mins)
Extras:
A selection of Public Information Fillers (PIFs) including Grain Drain, Searching, Tornado Trailer, and AIDS: Iceberg which was directed by Nic Roeg and features music by Brian Eno
***FIRST PRESSING ONLY*** Booklet featuring a new introduction by John Hall (Director, Films Division 1982-1989), a new essay on Smoking and You by Scott Anthony and previously published essays on all the other included films.
Size Reference for BFI Best of the COI
Available Sizes:
